


Full Circle

by Hikou



Series: Spiral [2]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: F/M, Self-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-28
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-20 16:04:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 10,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11338764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hikou/pseuds/Hikou
Summary: And so I stood alone, in a minefield of bodies, friends and foes that had been killed without discretion--no better and somehow no worse than I had been when I'd started, equally as clueless as I had ever been. I gave it back to them, the only thing I possessed. I let Shinra Incorporated keep that small scrap of humanity I'd smuggled away, I traded my only possession, just so I could pretend I knew who I was. [Self-Insert, Spiral Part 2]





	1. Transitions

**Author's Note:**

> Death Cycle Sequel

I can't remember how this is happening, who this man in front of me is meant to be, what the name Hikou is meant to entail.

My mind is trying so hard to rewind and fast-forward, to stop, pause, and replay at his every demand, I'm not sure I recall how to breathe, I know my heart doesn't remember how to beat.

He looks strikingly familiar, this smoky apparition of a man, trapped somewhere behind the haze of the bar we inhabit. He feels out of place in his too-white shirt, painstakingly perfect with his slick-backed hair, inhumanly composed with his face frozen into that bitter mask of express disbelief. My eyes are fixated on the bright red tie, pooling out of his collar like a river of blood leaking from his throat, and I recognize this new natural warning system, this bright flag of _danger, keep away_.

"Jealous?" he asks.

And for some reason, I get the impression this is meant to be funny, but cannot quite remember why.

I think it has something to do with the name-tag pinned to his chest, and I find a nostalgic sort of fascination slithering its way up my spine, into my nervous system without my consent. My hand reaches out and snatches it away without asking.

I read aloud, between the familiar red watermark, backwards from the bottom up, "Department Director, Armed Forces and Security Division, Employee ID 5496441, Miura, Yuuta." I'm laughing before I've finished, and his scowl sets me back years.

_You know, you're technically my subordinate now._

_Technically, you're a civilian now.  
_  
He was staring at me expectantly by time my mind bounced back into reality, and it took a moment to realize something must've been asked of me. "What?"

"I _said,_ " he reiterated, "where have you been?"

And I laugh even more. He looks as bored and unimpressed with me as he ever has been, and somewhere beyond my comprehension I feel like I've come home.

"Oh, Yuuta..." I breathe. "Where _haven't_ I been?" I take a large gulp from my drink and am mildly surprised to find the glass empty when I slam it back down on the table. "It started with your uncle..."

-

I'd never intended to actually take Yuuta's hand out. The world of Midgar was supposed to be Land of Opportunity, rich with possibilities, it shouldn't have been that hard to find work, but after the third day it became quite obvious the Land of Opportunity held no job unaffiliated with Shinra Inc.

And I was getting hungry.

And tired of being almost-mugged in the streets.

And you think they could've paid me a little more for being their little attack-dog for more than a year.

This was how I ended up on the doorstep of Miyamoto Murakami, already filthy enough to assume I'd clawed my way up from underneath the plate and already poor enough to remove all doubt. It was an idea I encouraged, standing in his tiny gold throne room, and this was for the best, I knew, because no amount of wishing would make the rags I'd become fit into this finery. The walls were upholstered in silk, the floor paved in velvet red carpet, and his chair was a carved pedestal of glimmering bejeweled dragons.

I can only introduce myself as, "Hikou."

He was an older man, sitting there judging me from his seat above us all, draped in twice as much silk and precious metals as the room he had poorly decorated. His hair had been shocked white in the terror of his age, the mouth hidden within his neatly trimmed beard held a perpetual smirk and cynical word for the world that, it seemed, only existed for his amusement.

He looked, in this moment, more like the emperor of Wutai than the man himself probably did.

But somehow I didn't feel intimidated.

Because I could see the dark splotches of _man_ littered throughout his little golden kingdom, darkening his clever illusion with the scent of cruelty and murder hanging over their heads. It was comforting and familiar; it made me feel at home.

He stood and waved me over in a fashion I found overly coaxing for my crossing of such a small distance. "Ah, Hikou. Come here, girl," he said. "Come here."

I ascended the three steps to greatness.

I never even fucking saw it coming.

A foot had sprung up towards my face, attached to a man I'd never even noticed standing there. Instinctively, my arm flew up to block my face, absorbing the full impact of the blow, the aftershock of which left me reeling back a few feet. I hadn't the time to think as my own leg kicked up in imitation, as if this were some warped sort of training exercise.

There was a flash of white, an arch of bronze as the man stretched back to his full height, arm coming up in a familiar fashion, the pose of the block somehow seeming infinitely stronger when reflected in his large muscles. The effect was much weaker, though, because there _was_ no aftershock to my kick. There was no skidding, there was no deflection, there was only a sickening crack, and I watched in fascination as his mouth widened and his lips snarled into a soundless scream.

His opposite arm swings up while my eyes are still trying to determine the state of his first, and this time there simply is not enough time to respond. I lunge forward and the well aimed punch at my neck, glances off my collar bone, as he topples over backwards, and I struggle to fall on top of him in some sort of beneficial position.

His lips pull back into the same silent confession of pain, and mine echo the motion with a bit more volume. Between my nerves and brain I hear the second crack.

My hand has pulled back for another strike, but I can feel that terrible pull at the base of my neck, like I haven't enough skin to cover all my bones, and the motion is tearing my flesh apart. But my hand slams down anyway, informed of the decision of _pain_ too late, and my fist comes down on his bad arm again.

A new, louder crack sounds.

And he screams this time.

And it sounds oddly beautiful.

But there are new hands on my shoulder, trying to pull me off by my arm, and in turn tearing that hole in my chest where he's hit me even further.

And the only good objective I can think of is _get him off_.

My foot reaches up too high, and wedges itself between his ribcage and my arm. There shouldn't be enough room to push that hard, but when the muscles in my calves uncoil, the man is stumbling backwards into the wall. The cheap wood behind the silk upholstery cracks, and a man-shaped imprint is left in the fabric where he's almost fallen through the plywood walls.

I suddenly feel more tired than I can remember being in a life time. There is no energy to pull my leg back from whichever haphazard position it's fallen into, and I can barely even lean up on my left arm, hovering over the man still hissing beneath me. Too lazy to lift my head up, I study him for the first time.

Bleached white hair trails to soft doe-eyes, encased in an exotic almond-shape. A long scar runs from temple to chin, across his left eye, through his nose, just above his lips. I hardly hear Murakami speaking. "--haven't seen a fight like that in--" I'm too busy focusing on the way his eyes are studying mine. "--passed with flying colors--" It's more important to try and discern if it's just his breathing making me sway or if I'm really that dizzy. "--hurts, huh, boy?"

We look up in the same instant, and the False Emperor laughs louder.

"Hikou," he says, "allow me to introduce you to Kwan-Ahn, third captain of our humble family." His sleeve sways in his sweeping gesture of his golden abode, his shadowed men.

I feel the words rumbling beneath me, out of this man's stomach before I hear them. It's a mumble at first, too deep and too low to decipher.

"What?"

And between the sweat on his brow and his clenching teeth the man beneath me chokes out, "A pleasure."

A moment of silence passes between us, echoing out from the small space between our faces to fill the entire room in a vacuum without sound. No one else may breathe until we do. No one else may speak until we have spoken.

In half a second the fragile bubble of quiet is shattered.

Because when my forehead smacks into the floor between his shoulder and his neck, I'm grinning like a goddamned Cheshire cat and I'm laughing like a half-crazed hyena.


	2. Team Battle

"I probably should've mentioned initiation," Yuuta admits thoughtfully, still nursing his first drink. 

I don't look at him; my eyes are still floating around the bar, searching for the waitress because I'm well on my way to my third. When I try to swirl the cubes at the bottom of my glass they only clank together sadly, outweighing the alcohol in copious amounts. "Probably," I agree. 

It's easy to imitate Yuuta in this sense. His stoic mask glides effortlessly across my face because it has occurred to me very suddenly that I don't want to be talking about this. Though now it feels like an eternity has passed, these memories feel sanctified in a manner I don't have to justify. It is sacrilegious to recall them in such a manner. 

It is evil to recite their story while wearing this face. 

So I spin the conversation as fast as I can, "What have you been up to then, Mr. Director?" 

"Directing," he answers, and though I get the feeling he means to end it there, I just can't let it be. 

"Directing what." 

"Men and finances, but finances mostly," he sounds earnest enough. "There are a lot of rebuilding projects that need consideration globally; I decide which ones are worth the company's time and how much money they get." He cracks a wry smile, and the drag of the unfamiliar gesture bunches his skin around a scar I haven't yet noticed just underneath his cheekbone. "Every now and again they let me head the missions myself, but more often than not it's a lot of paperwork and tactics." 

"And when did you start that?" I ask. 

"A little under a year ago," he tells me. "I split between Junon and Midgar when I made second. Originally, I was in line to be the next SOLDIER Director," I ignore the fact he's gloating, "but... it took a while for Rufus to scrape everything back together after meteor." 

"Ah, meteor," and the last of my drink is gone. I cannot find the waitress. "Did you ever meet Strife?"

He doesn't have to ask who I'm talking about. "No, you?"

"Once, I think," I've popped an ice cube into my mouth, and it's awkward to form words around it, but the cold sensation helps slow my rapid tongue, and I think this is something I should appreciate, "back when I was still with Shinra. He was a friend of Zack's, you know?" 

"I know." 

A moment of silence passes. My teeth slip off of the ice cube and I accidentally chomp down on my tongue. "He probably knows everything we don't." 

For the first time I can remember, Yuuta Miura cannot look me in the eye. 

"You don't want to know as badly as I don't," I realize. 

He struggles to change the subject; I can't imagine how he's coping in a social occupation. "How bad was life with Murakami?" 

And I don't have the heart to call him on it as he would've in my shoes. I pretend to laugh. 

Things are okay now, because the waitress has stumbled by with a refill. 

"You know, I always thought I wanted to be Yakuza until I met that man." The laugh that spills from my mouth is filled with cynicism. "And here I was, thinking _Shinra_ were the bad guys..."

\- 

It's a night like any other, like any day. 

Beneath the plate the sun does not shine, and though the heat lamps that are welded to the rusted-out, metal sky are programmed to time us into an artificial day, I know better. It all feels the same, and in this way life blurs into one ceaseless streak of continuity. 

My hands are idly shuffling through a deck of cards, my legs curled beneath me on the floor of this shitty apartment, and my eyes focus on no one thing in particular. The man on the TV is droning, he has been droning, he will be droning. "It's 11:11," he tells me, "and here's our latest story out of Midgar..." I fade in and out of his special bulletin on mako poisoning in children's toys, because I can't remember if he means it's 11:11 AM or 11:11 PM. 

But when the door clicks open and closed again I know. 

Because he never comes in the morning; there's never anything he wants in the morning.

I don't even look up.

Kwan-Ahn has slipped into my home again with a sense of regularity we'd adapted to at an alarmingly quick pace. It was startling how quickly we had become complacent to our own naturalities. We embraced this with the good grace one ought to treat a substitute. This man did not know, but he was filling the shoes of some four odd boys I'd left behind. 

And all things considered, he was doing a phenomenal job. 

I often wondered who I was meant to replace, but he never mentioned, so I didn't ask. 

I like Kwan-Ahn because he's easy to read, and complexity in men is something I cannot find the time for any longer. Sometimes he comes just to take advantage of my hospitality, to raid my kitchen, and demand I cater to him, other days, he's just tired of being alone, and is content to nap on my couch, while I continue on as if he isn't present, and it's not strikingly difficult to figure out what he's after when those magic fingers glide down my sides and I'm forced to fall into the corrupt touch of calloused hands. 

I imagine she must've been something special, my original copy, the prototype to my replacing. 

Tonight, though, he's just staring at the TV, looking as unimpressed and familiar as I can bear, some semi-automatic deathtrap slung over his shoulder. I've almost forgotten Murakami has recruited me again, signed my name under _executioner_ on one of his new little death-warrants. 

It's easy to forget these things. 

He's waiting on me. 

The cards skid from my fingers, flipping upwards to rain down on me in a snow of jokers and aces, falling hearts and bloodied diamonds. It's difficult not to laugh when one flicks him in the nose, just beneath that terrible scar. 

For me, anyway.

"We were supposed to be there thirty minutes ago," he barks. "They won't stay put much longer." 

And I stand and heave an overly dramatic sigh, skating through my rink of slippery plastic cards. "Excuse me, I'm not in the mood to kill people tonight." 

And his face does not change with my bitter voice, and neither does his solemn attitude.

I pick up my gun and we leave.

He's done surprisingly well this time. I don't ask how he's managed to con these people into this dark and dreary building, the place of their demise, though curiosity strikes me. I know I won't be able to understand the answer; I just know I've fallen victim to his clever weave of words before. I await the moment it will be as fatal for me as it will be for these men tonight. 

It's backwards, this partnership we've drawn together. It makes me feel ugly when I slip through the doorway, not the woman with the snake's tongue, but the man sent in to finish the job. Our role reversal pains me, and though I've never said anything, I get the feeling he knows. 

He brings a weapon every time, though he never uses it. 

He doesn't even bother coming inside this time; I walk alone.

Somewhere in between I've convinced myself this is okay. This is all right. I've fooled myself into believing these men have volunteered to die. I silently agree that they deserve this. 

Kwan-Ahn says, _You shouldn't try to cover the whole sky with your palm_ , and it gets harder daily to pretend I cannot hear him.

Shadows flicker through the wan light dancing under the doorway in this warehouse turned slaughterhouse, just another job. I have a better chance smelling the dust their feet kick up, than seeing their legs move. And I don't have to try hard to hit one.

There's three this time.

There are three men I've never met.

And tonight, I'm going to kill them.

It's better that I can't see.


	3. Trails

Yuuta remains quiet for a long time, and I really wish that he would stop. 

I don't like having time to think about this--to pick apart the past, to want to magic things better, to relive the tragedy that was life after Shinra. 

The worst part of the silence is I know what he wants to ask me. 

It's the word I hate the most. 

_Why._

Why, Hikou? If you hated killing so much, why trade one body bag for another? If you really didn't mind, why have ever left us? 

I don't want to answer because I know I've only traded boys for men, and the blood still spills all the same. I've seen it with my own two eyes, and I've caused it with these too-small hands. My mind is too smart for my degenerated soul. It's bad enough to have to see how much I enjoy it--the color red, to know it's wrong, but I continue anyway, to realize I'm only _pretending_ this is some preordained gift from god--this mercilessness that has kept me alive thus far. 

I don't want to have to say it out loud. 

And I can still hear Kwan-Ahn's echo in my head, _You shouldn't try to cover the whole sky with your palm._

 __So I strike.

I strike because I don't have the strength to block, and I know Yuuta has always been the better fighter anyway. "So who is she?" 

He looks up, absolutely startled. 

I wonder if he thought I'd never ask, or that I'd just had too many by now to notice, or maybe that I didn't really give a shit about that plain, silver ring wrapped around his left finger. His hand is reaching into the front pocket of his jacket, and I tense because this is the way a man reaches for a gun, but I'm obligated to feel like a fool when he pulls out that black leather wallet, and that roll of plastic-covered photographs falls out. 

They're cute kids, I have to admit. His little boy looks just like him, all cropped black hair and narrow dark eyes, but the smile that lights upon his face is the same worn by brown-haired girl with the matching silver ring. However, the oldest, his daughter, has inherited her father's scowl. 

They confuse me. 

Because they look like a man I used to know, these small young faces, and it feels like thievery to see them parade around with his eyes, and nose, and downcast disposition. 

I don't ask any more because I really don't want to know. I don't care about his terrible love story, I don't want to know how old his children are; it's too foreign, and new, and completely outlandish. 

I know he doesn't want to know either when he observes, "You talk about Kwan-Ahn an awful lot." This is simply his retaliating blow. 

"Kwan-Ahn was around an awful lot," doesn't shrug off as well as it should. 

He's folding up the wallet, tucking it back away, and I find myself almost wishing he _had_ pulled a gun instead. "Still?" 

And maybe it's the alcohol, loosening the chains I've used to bind my heart into my chest, unlocking the jailcell I've transformed my ribcage into, but suddenly I want to cry. The pressure extends up, out of my chest, and behind my eyes before I'm fully aware what's happening. It's startling and off-putting, and I have to snap back with, "Interested? You're married," before this gets too far out of control. 

"Not especially, just curious." He leans back in his chair, free to relax now that he's dominating our make-believe battle. "Murakami told me he left with you." 

"He did," I'm forced to admit. "I didn't _make_ him," I argued. "I never even _asked_ him to come. He was just sort of... always there." 

I've set to tearing the napkin on the table into strips of confetti, unable to go long without destroying _something,_ while Yuuta looks on with the cunning eye of a man trained to observe. 

"It was more his idea than mine, anyway..." 

\- 

It gets too hot under the plate, and I don't cope well with heat. 

I want to shuffle in bed, between the dry cotton sheets, twist and turn and roll until I find a comfortable way to lay, but there is no comfort, sweating this much, and I'm afraid the tiny friction of switching sides will just make the heat even more unbearable. 

The blanket has been long since discarded, waded into a pile in the far corner of the room, flung away so that it cannot hold any semblance of warmth this closely to my bed. This is why there's no satisfying thump when I flip the sheet back, away from my body. The only reason I've tolerated it thus far is some warped sense of modesty, because if it's too hot for even the top blanket, it's too hot for bedclothes. 

Face down, back exposed, I feel no cooler. I'm only more solemnly focused on the heat radiating from the flesh pressed against my side. 

I've never been this close to kicking a man out of my bed before. 

I've convinced myself that somehow this would be more sufferable if someone hadn't stole _my_ side of the bed, that there was some alleviation to be found if I were the only occupant here, but when I tilt my head to glare over my shoulder at the man who must be sleeping so peacefully to have not moved in all my shifting, I'm met with the startling sight of eyes wide open. 

I open my mouth, to say what, I have no idea, but I'm determined for the end result to be a sheetless, manless mattress. 

But before I can even choke out my first word, a heavy hand finds the bottom of my spine, and I sharply realize that it's not me his eyes are focused on. 

The world is out of place behind the back of my head, and it takes a moment to recall why. 

The whirring of the window-fan is missing, and it suddenly becomes obvious why I can no longer bear the feel of the sheet on my back or the company of the man beside me. 

My neck cranes backwards again, eyes straining in my skull to get a good look at the window without actually having to move. It's difficult to see in an area this dark, more difficult to care when feeling this miserable, but I still manage to trace the outline of the white appliance, kicked out onto the floor, skidded too far out to still be plugged into the wallsocket. The screen of the window is missing. The curtains are swaying forbiddingly. 

I wait a short moment, expecting a strike that never comes from someone I cannot see, but that Kwan-Ahn can, and am forced to decide with a huff that the idiot has just managed to find a new way to aggravate me--falling asleep with his eyes open. 

I clamber out of bed and heft the chunk of plastic back onto the windowsill, running my fingers along the wall to try and find the electrical socket in the dark. Crouching against the wall, I take a half step to the right, and am disgusted to hear my foot _squelch_ into the ratty carpeting. 

I turn to ask the man in my bed exactly what he's done to my apartment, and at fifteen degrees, before nothing but a patch of white hair has skittered into my vision, I smell it--tangy and thick in the air. 

Blood. 

At forty-five degrees I can see his open eyes out of the corner of mine, but my main focus is the thick trail of darkness that leads underneath the door, out into the living room. 

My legs spring up, out of their crouch, and in a mechanically curious nature I follow the trail out, footsteps squelching behind me. I forget I'm still holding the plug to the fan until I hear it fall out of the wall. 

It's alright, though, Kwan-Ahn is up behind me, going to set it back in place, while I stroll out tired and wide-eyed like a child trying to catch Santa. 

Perhaps he hadn't been sleeping. 

It's easier to see out here; the windows are bigger and left uncovered, and though there isn't much stray light leaking in from the underground world outside my walls, there's more than in the bedroom. It's easy enough to tell he's a man. 

And it's easier still to tell he's no longer alive. 

He's clearly been dragged out of the bedroom, the long smears of blood coming to a pause around his crumpled and broken body. His legs are stretched out too far to have fallen naturally in this position, his arms are still reaching out. 

My mind spirals into a natural and familiar field of motion, this train of thought ingrained to the point of automism. The pistol laying on the table, between a thin wallet and a ridiculous-looking, blood-covered butterfly knife, has not been fired; I could not have slept through that, but judging by the the deep purple bruises swelling into bursting cracks of welled-up blood it must've been used. 

I can almost see the sweeping motion in my mind's eye of the heavy metal cracking down on this man's skull, clenched in a firm, tan hand. 

His neck is leaned back at an awkward angle, bones seeming to stick out of his throat that should not be poking that far under the skin, and though I can see his insides peaking out from between the deep but small slash in his stomach, I think he must've been dead before he was disemboweled with his own knife. There would be more blood if his heart was still beating when the incision was made, it's almost obvious, though I can't imagine what need Kwan-Ahn would have to butcher up a dead man. I don't intend to ask, though he is waiting to answer, standing naked in my doorway, hands now quite clearly caked in blood. 

I wonder if he'd gotten it on my back. 

I twitch off the sensation and turn to the table, hands already tearing through the wallet left there. 

My eyes are rewarded with a familiar red watermark. 

And because it's a secret obsession of mine, because these cards with their magnetic strips and colored photographs interest me to no end, I read it aloud. "Montgomery, Jason. Employee ID 3590001. Peacekeeping Division." The last line almost hurts. "Shinra Incorporated." 

Words echo in my mind, as I set it back. 

_How far do you think you'll make it before those scientists reel you back in?_

__My hand shoots to my forehead, trying to contain these thoughts physically, trying to push these memories back into their place. I know he's still watching me, arms crossed in the doorway. He's waiting to see what I'm going to do. He wants to know if I'm going to pull my hand away and be crying before he decides what to say.

But I'm not, and I take the first word anyway. "Fuck." 

My hands pick up the wallet again and start shredding through it. I rip the sleeve of cards out of their stitching. Three more red watermarks fall onto the table--three more magnetic strips and three _identical_ photos. 

_Montgomery, Jason. Science Division._

_Montgomery, Jason. Undisclosed Access._

There's nothing else to say, so I say it again. " _Fuck._ " I look back to Montgomery, Jason, neck snapped backwards, bled out next to my shitty little couch, and notice his dark, navy blue suit for the first time. I can't be sure what it means, but it feels bad. 

_How far..._

" _Goddamnit!"_ I shriek and chuck Montgomery, Jason's useless ID cards at his corpse. One lands to float in the puddle of blood he'd leaked out some time ago. Another rests against his soft, black jacket. The last falls into his open stomach. 

Kwan-Ahn is still watching. 

"I thought I'd have more time than this," I tell him. He waits for me to finish the thought process, but all I can come up with is, "Fuck." 

He shouldn't understand this, but I feel like he does when he walks over and pulls me away from the table, walks me back to the bedroom. His voice is calm when he explains, "There's been talk around about Shinra engineering mako reactor modifications." Modifications can mean anything, I don't have to say. "Some people say they're creating monsters inside the core." And though this information is not shocking, it's terrifying to me. "They're probably just covering loose ends. It doesn't matter if you know anything or not; if you're no longer affiliated with the company, you're a liability." 

I want to ask him how he knows so much about Shinra, but the word _core_ is echoing against my eardrums, shuttering down into my clenched teeth. 

I want to ask him if he thinks this is why, but I've never told him about life Before Shinra. I've never mentioned that a couple of too-young SOLDIERS ripped me out of a reactor core just the same as they'd rip me out of the womb. 

Kwan-Ahn only knows I'm ex-SOLDIER, and based on this information, he's performed admirably, pushing me back into the bed, ignoring how my feet paint stripes of red across the sheets, or how his hand leave red prints all over the pillows. 

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I'm priding over getting _my_ side of the bed back. 

"I need new sheets," I say stupidly. 

"Don't worry about it," he instructs, "we're leaving in the morning anyway." 

I don't argue, because I know this is a good plan. 

He turns away from me so that open eyes can watch the window. 

I realize too late that I'm freezing.


	4. Trials

Yuuta is doing long division in his head, and I'm still trying to count how many times my glass has been refilled. The world feels hazy and soft-edged, and my heart is beating out of my chest because I know better than to believe this.

"So you left Midgar after how long?" he demands.

I want to tell him I am immune to time, that my mind is not designed to keep track of such things, but am forced to admit, "Three years."

"And how long did you travel?"

"Ten months."

His voice is spinning in circles, and I don't like where this is going. "Which gives you just enough time to settle and reinstate your post box."

I don't ask how these items are connected.

He explains anyway. "Kunsel died roughly five months after the fiasco at the old Shinra Manor. I imagine he would've had just enough time to send you inquiry and for you to reply."

My head ducks automatically, my fingers graze across my forehead, trying to shield the guilt and panic in my eyes from this man who has absolutely no right to judge me. I don't want to have to match our stories against each other. I don't want to make them one.

Because then I'll have to know.

"He asked about Zack," and I'm not sure if the words originate from my mouth or his.

"And?"

"And I told him about the reactors." There are two hands now, covering my face, and I wonder how the muffled words sound from outside my head. I wonder if they're as shaky, I know they're only half as loud. "I asked him to look into it."

When I peek over the tips of my fingers, Yuuta's leaning back in his chair, eyes wide and dead, mouth hanging open. There is no energy to be spared from his mind for keeping up appearances. He's soon calculating out loud, "...and he assumed the escaped subjects were Zack. He must've gone up to the office labs to find more."

"There are a lot of dangerous things up there," I recall sullenly.

"...easy to have an accident," Yuuta finishes the thought.

We stare at each other in horror.

"Why would you ask him to do that." He doesn't remember what he wants to say. "Why would you. What could have been gained."

My breathless gasps are overlapping now, choking into sniffles I can't control. My lungs are convulsing in uneven pulses, and Yuuta doesn't care who is staring on at me. He's already got me crying, he might as well get the worst of it over with.

All at once. Fast as he can.

Like a bandaid.

Yuuta handles life like a bandaid.

And this is why he wants to know, "Why isn't Kwan-Ahn with you." _What death did you send him to._

Because I can see the blame in his eyes, and God, do I hate him for it. He's never cared for his superiors before, and I see no reason for him to start now. I reach across the table and grab him by that awful red tie, that flashing warning of _Shinra,_ and grin like a goddamned maniac.

In my reach a glass knocks off the table, shatters to the floor, and whoever hasn't been staring yet is staring now. "Mr. WRO, Mr. Save our own Asses and then the World wants to know where Kwan-Ahn is? He wants to know if he died on my behalf just like Kunsel, just like Zack," my voice drops to a whisper, "just like David."

His hand shoots for a pressure point on my neck in a swift, chopping motion, but I've been ex-Shinra for seven years, and I've killed more people in person than Mr. WRO has headed missions, and in three years of pre-ordained deaths and four years of running I've had no time to plateau behind an office desk, so it's really no surprise that the table flips up underneath my leg and topples over the man, pinning him to the ground.

"I'm sure you'll be thrilled to hear," I announce, "that Kwan-Ahn is dead."

-

I hadn't know what it was at first, and laying tousled out in the cold night I told Kwan-Ahn, "You really ought to bathe more often."

He laughed it off because he knew.

A month later we'd since came and gone to Fort Condor and were halfway to Junon. The tiny spot on his leg was still there. He was sleeping inside the tent, and I was still wide awake, staring at the flesh that almost looked bruised in its discoloration. I gave it a soft push, and he jerked awake, slapping my hand away.

I tried to pretend I was sleeping, but it was hard with black goo on my fingers.

Three months later Junon has past, and so has Costa del Sol. We've worked our way down and around the mountains, into Corel territory. When I notice it's starting to get bigger. It's grown from the size of a one-gil piece to an apple, and I can't tell if the white bandage wrapped around his leg is to soak up that black discharge, or to keep me from noticing.

It's been just over four months since Corel. I've since seen the wonders of Rocket Town and Nibelheim. We're out towards the desert, heading for the Canyon, when I finally muster up the courage to ask what I really don't want to know. I bump his side lightly with my hip, and when he groans I ask, "What's wrong with you?"

"I fell down some stairs," he whines between grit teeth, and I can't tell if he's trying to be funny.

Because I know the bruise is growing again. It's peaking out of the top of his bandages, spreading from mid-thigh to reach his abdomen.

It's one month later, and Kwan-Ahn is bed-ridden.

The elders whisper stigma, they push us to the outskirts of the Cosmo Canyon, where the sick lay in droves. I am reminded of a leper colony.

The black has crept even further now, moving in both directions at once. It's halfway down his calf, and wrapped around his left arm. It takes most of my day to try and squeeze the sludge out of his skin, there's so much of it. I don't have time to help the others, I tell myself, and this is how I sleep at night.

I'm getting panicked.

I cry a lot.

Kwan-Ahn pretends he doesn't notice.

In the back of my head, I'm thinking Shinra. There must be some sort of treatment. Something I don't have. I'm going over bargains in my head. Exchanges I can make with the devil to save this man's life, when he asks me, much like a child, "Hikou, I want to see Wutai before..."

"You're going to be fine," I bite out before his wheezing, weak voice can finish. "You just fell down some stairs." I laugh fakely, but you can hear it in my voice.

"Hikou," he croaks, "you shouldn't try to cover the whole sky with your palm."

I wish I could die too.

Two more months sees us in southern Wutai. There's a small village between the mountains, one willing to help, because Kwan-Ahn will not die in a leper colony. It's reached his toes now and moved up his face to kiss the scar stretching from his temple. His entire left side is black. I require two more people now, to try and squeeze the goo out, to what avail, I don't know.

I'm still trying to figure out if the devil will trade anything for my worthless soul when Kunsel sends word.

I have only a moment to grieve for Zack.

I ask him about the reactors because I think this has something to do with it. I think it has been engineered, this biochemical warfare, or warped mutation. I'm sure Shinra has birthed pain to the world again in this Stigma. I don't know any better.

Kunsel never replies.

Two weeks later, the black has crept across his forehead, contrasting sickeningly with his white blonde hair. My two assistants have since given up, but I'm still trying to wipe the bruise off of his body. I can see it behind his eyes.

I know it's in his brain.

And I sob onto him because he's not dead, although his vacant look says differently. Kwan-Ahn cannot even have a beautiful death now. He will have no memorable last words, and there will be no glory.

Three days later, sprawled across my lap, unaware and probably for the best, for his own good, I concede sorrowfully, Kwan-Ahn dies in my lap. I can't remember the time, but I know the exact moment. It haunts me. The haggard, uneven rise and fall of his chest just putts out like a bad engine, and I'm left, clothes soaked in blackness, holding a corpse.

I sit on the edge of the mountain for six days and cry; more than once, I almost slip off.


	5. Tribulation

The proprietor of this lovely establishment was too smart to ask us to leave. He knew how to read red warning signs better than I did, and furthermore, he actually _cared._ But it was not within his capacity to let us destroy his bar, and he suggested that maybe, perhaps, we might be more comfortable taking our scuffle outside where things would be less cluttered.

Yuuta, tipsy at best, still had control of his unimpressed mask, but by now I was crying so hard that I was laughing. Emotionally and physically strained.

Inebriated.

This was how I found myself sitting down that familiar back alley, red brick scraping into my back, as I put my head between my knees and tried to will the world to stop spinning.

Yuuta can only bear to stand a minute before he realizes I'm not bowing to him, and plops down at my side, elbows balanced on his knees.

He doesn't know what to do. It's not part of the plan for me to still be sobbing between chuckles.

Although, I must admit, the throbbing in my head is doing wonders to tone my sniffles down.

This is what is left of SOLDIER.

And my heart _screams._

 __Thousands of hopeful, narrowed down to we two, sitting in a gutter outside of an old bar, me drunk and him bleeding.

"Many were lost to the Stigma," he tells me, and the word sounds bolded and capitalized in a familiar way. "There wasn't much we could do."

And I spit, "Bullshit," before I've realized my mouth is open. "That goddamned Shinra brat is still kicking; don't think I don't know."

"Hikou, I don't have answers for you," he tells me. I think he sounds like the ocean, calm and never-ending. I fear he's trying to drag me to my death. "We're trying now. I make sure of it. We're trying now."

I don't tell him that _now_ doesn't do _me_ any good. I press my head to my knees and try to focus on breathing. This is not the way I am meant to act.

Yuuta's hand is on my arm. "Do you have any family?" he wants to know. "Do you have any children?"

And my laugh is so barkingly cynical I can't even stand it. I reach inside _my_ pocket the way he reached into his, and I wonder if he's naive enough to be waiting for pictures.

Because it's a handgun I lay down on the sidewalk between us.

"If I did, I could pretend I was normal, and then what use would I have for you?" The words are harsher than I'd intended.

"Hikou, what are you doing here."

It's a breathy whisper.

In a familiar tone.

And it strikes me quite suddenly that he sounds like Zack--prying, disarmed, and somehow unconditionally concerned.

I am ashamed I have no tears left.

I stare at him wide-eyed, confused. I have no answer for this question and he knows it. I don't know how he knows it. I've never belonged here. I hadn't worked out the logistics yet of Midgar turned Edge. I just knew the cliff didn't want me anymore, and there was no place for me along the path Kwan-Ahn and I had carved through the world. Even if I had a mind for reconstruction, I had no skill for it.

I was just a broken cog of a murder machine that had been put out of service.

And Edge was meant to fix this.

I didn't have to have a purpose, or a point. I'd been lying to myself my whole life, I could keep right on until I was dead.

Yuuta has had time to practice his farewells. It's a nice business card he hands me this time, not some nameless address on a leftover napkin, and I can hear the echo of _you don't die easy_ when his hand clasps my shoulder almost... affectionately.

He's standing, to walk away.

I expect he should give me a cheesy catchphrase. _Be part of the solution, not the problem. - Shinra Inc._ Because I can already see the red watermark on this business card out of the corner of my eye. But the words that spill out of his lips in slow motion shock me to my very core. Though, I don't suppose they should. It was an old, old saying, something Yuuta had probably heard from his uncle as a child. Something he did not intend to be humorous or perverse.

Something somehow always applicable in my situation.

"Hikou, you really shouldn't try to block out the sky with just your hand."


	6. Tableau

I wonder if this would have been Kwan-Ahn's final phrase. His enlightened message to me from the brink of death, a small fortune cookie wrapper for me to hold on to for the rest of my life.

I wonder if he would've said nothing.

I wonder if he would've smiled, or maybe just frowned.

If his eyes had not been dead from the inside out, would he have told me he loved me or would he have told me to buck up, kid.

Was he regretting this right now, or was he laughing in the lifestream. Was he even Kwan-Ahn anymore.

It was so unresolved. _Everything_ was so unresolved.

There was no one to clear out the past of Kwan-Ahn. There was no one to tell me who the woman was that came before me. There was no one who knew what was happening in his mind when he dragged me cross-country--if he was dying anyway, or if he genuinely gave a shit.

But Zack Fair's story had an ending and a witness. My unattended savior could be resolved.

This is how I ended up on the doorstep of the 7th Heaven around closing time, already trashed, leaning against the doorway with Yuuta's blood on my knuckles and a bruised left arm.

I was genuinely surprised that she let me in, but apparently, "Cloud Strife," were the magic words around here. Perhaps though, it wasn't even Cloud, perhaps it was the echo of, "Shinra," behind them, or maybe it was the follow up.

"It's late; can't you wait to see him in the morning?"

It was a salesman's voice I used when I moved to answer. _I'd like to show you our new Super-Vac 5000. Guaranteed to clean any spill!_ "I'd like to speak to him about Zack Fair."

Those were the real magic words.

_Zack Fair._

__This pretty young thing's eyes went wide and the broom she was holding clattered the ground with an abnormally loud sound. I heard him before I saw him, those heavy leather boots tromping across the hardwood floors--a caveman coming to fight off whatever bar lech had startled _his woman--_ but when he came into view, my heart stopped beating in my chest.

Because it wasn't some lumbering caveman that came to take care of this problem I had become.

It was still that baby-faced 15 year old boy, head superimposed on a man's body.

I wanted to pick up the broom, just so _I_ could drop it in shock too.

His voice didn't feel right. Too mature for his wide, innocent eyes, when he barked, "The bar's closed; come back tomorrow." And the door was already swinging with such momentum to my face I'm surprised the woman's thin wrist possessed the power to stop it.

" _Cloud,_ " was the whisper, "she said she knew _Zack._ "

But the door still only remains open a fraction of an inch, just enough for this woman to wrap her fingers around its edge. It strikes me quite suddenly that Cloud Strife does not owe me a goddamned thing.

This is not Yuuta. We are not friends. We've never even been introduced.

But Cloud Strife has all the answers I need, so I start the tirade through the crack in the door, wishing very much I'd kept my ID to solidify this story. "We met once," I tell him, and it makes me feel old, "when you were still an MP. Zack brought you with him to my room the day before I left. I didn't tell him I was going."

And I pray he remembers this minute detail. This second in the passings of his life.

He never tells me if he does or doesn't. It is irrelevant either way.

"I just want to know what happened."

Because what I've failed to realize here is Zack Fair's story is very much Cloud Strife's story, and he still isn't obligated to divulge anything.

But despite the furrowed brow and the impossible looking glare painted on his face, when the door swings open to reveal that familiar posture, arms folded over his chest, he orders me to, "Come in."

I say, "Thank you," and for the first time in a long time, I mean it.

Sitting at the dimly lit table with Tifa far enough away to look busy but still overhear, and a young girl toddling around _way_ past her bedtime is no way to have a serious conversation. This is no way to give or take confessions. Cloud doesn't understand this, and I don't want to tell him for fear he won't want to speak at all.

The girl startles me most, and I'm forced to wonder if she belongs to this young couple. It seems odd and foreign that a man this young has a girl this old, but then it strikes me that she's not much younger than Yuuta's daughter, and though I remember the savior of the planet as we know it as a fifteen year old boy goofing around with Zack Fair, it occurs to me that Cloud Strife must be nearing his late twenties at an alarming rate.

I am not used to the idea of children.

She's spinning in circles at a stool at the bar, and I wonder if maybe this could've been David's daughter and his wife. I wonder if he would've walked away as scarred as the rest of us if he indeed had the chance to walk.

"What do you want to know?" he asks me.

And the answers are endless.

"I want to know what Zack got himself into." It was too broad a topic and I knew it. "I want to know why I have to be sitting here with you instead of him." I'm talking to hear my own voice now. "I want to know why it's classified so high that minimal investigation warrants death." Just thinking out loud. "But if I know Zack, and I think I do, it has something to do with protecting something that's not his problem."

I've almost missed his cow-eyed look of panic. That instant flash of guilt in his wide eyes that I could not understand and had no intention of provoking.

Tifa has stopped sweeping and is looking at me in a combination of horror and anger. The only sound is the squeak of the barstool as the girl spins around.

And around.

And around.

Cloud Strife's mouth opens.

And closes again without warning.

I am pleading.

"I want you to tell me this is not my fault."


	7. Tale

Cloud Strife, saver of worlds and defender of innocents, is really a very good story teller. 

He starts at the beginning, in SOLDIER, with Genesis Rhapsodos, my one-day mentor, and spirals down through the failings of the infamous three as he recalls them. 

I listen with a hand over my mouth, so he cannot see it hanging open. 

Somewhere in the back of my mind, a list is getting longer as the names Genesis, Angeal, Sephiroth, and Lazard tack on under _deceased,_ each a fleeting image of iron covered in porcelain. 

The list stays solid for a while because he does not mention Kunsel, and the fog of Zack Fair's death is too poetic and beautiful to count. I find it ironic that he is the only one to die as a Legend ought, heaven crying for our loss and blood staining the victory of his own defeat. 

Somehow Zack Fair has bested us. His name is crossed out. 

It is a space between barmaids and gunmen, a trek and a half around the world and back through Canyons, and Amusement Parks, and Folklore turned Tangible, before the name Aeris Gainsborough lands itself on my list. Her death is tainted in some way I cannot identify, soaked in the tears this man before me is too tired to cry any more. 

She sounds strikingly familiar. 

_And I've got myself this stunningly hot girlfriend... Maybe you've met her._

__I wonder how long it's taken this man to school himself to leave this part of his story out. My curiosity peaks to know why he ought to forget Aeris Gainsborough and Zack Fair might be happy together right now, but he is no longer answering the question I've asked, and he is reliving too much for me to pry.

The story fades into cannons and weapons, meteors and men. I am unimpressed and disinterested. 

But in the back of my mind, I know Zack would be beaming like a goddamn four year old on Christmas morning, and when I tell him so, he chuckles at me. 

My smile feels false because I am sure he would not look the same way upon me. 

Somewhere in between this bed-time tale of his, Cloud Strife has gained a drink and a smile. He's staring at me as if it were Zack sitting across the table, and not some young boy I'd never known. I like him, I decide, because he makes this feel better. Less awkward, informal, almost amicable.

As if he really had known me forever. As if Cloud Strife might have really once been SOLDIER 1st Class. 

I wonder if his fond feelings will remain in the morning, when the haze of sleep and stress wear off, when he remembers again that this is part of Zack, not Cloud. 

"So how did you know Zack?" 

Or maybe Cloud Strife is just relieved to have someone who knows--more than his pretty woman, less than the enigmatic widow, someone who had seen Zack Fair before the world had tried to bend and twist him to its sick will, before he ceased being a man and started becoming a Legend. 

Perhaps, this is his funeral.

"He saved my ass," I grin despite myself, "more than once." Cloud lifts his glass to this, and I laugh out loud, between the tears that I know are crawling their way underneath from behind my eyes. "I think... I'm happy for him."

He doesn't even try to mask his disagreement. "Why?"

I have to shrug it off. "Zack liked saving people; it's what he was good at, and I suppose he might have just damn near saved all of us with you." 

His blue eyes are wide again. They are a shade that belongs in the past, but I like seeing them. I like being reminded that Zack smiled and joked, scowled and scolded, lived and died because he _wanted_ to help us. It seems foreign to me that this is not a responsibility, this is a love. 

Unconditional and pure. 

And I don't think that Cloud understands this yet, but maybe it's different when you're a hero too. 

I stand and so does he. The walk to the door is slow and comfortable, quiet and calming. The woman has long since left with the little girl because the sun's nearly rising when I open the slab of wood to slip out into the world again. 

I turn to look at him again because I like being around this hero--somehow a painless reminder of what I ought to be. 

"Thanks again," I say, and it doesn't feel half as formal as it should, but he's alright with it. He stumbles for a minute, and I think Cloud Strife likes being around me too--a relic to prove that his past was just as real and just as singular as the man connecting us, a peer on some level that his rag-tag group of comrades cannot be. "I'll see you around then?"

He nods and takes the line. "Yeah, stop by for a drink sometime." 

I think I just might. 

But right now the sun is waiting for me outside, and one thing is ringing clear above all the chaos and confusion of death, and stigmas, and Shinra. Above all these half-finished memories, these perfectly directed tragedies, strung together to make up my life, I remember Zack Fair, not as a man, but as an idea. 

I remember a Hero, I remember a Legend, who tried to save the world all on his own.

I remember a man who succeeded. 

There is an office door somewhere, glass window lettered in gold, and behind it sits strength and pride, sureness and a complete lack of doubt. 

I've remembered what it was I've been wanting. 

It doesn't seem hypocritical, pulling out that red-marked card, because if Zack could do it, then I could too. 

I finally know what needs to be done.


	8. Theology

The carpet was still plush and red, and though my feet were shoed now, I have the feeling it would've still felt very much the same. 

The letters on the door were still printed in gold, their meaning still masked in the loose terms of Shinra _Head of Investigation Sector of the General Affairs Department, ABV: TURKS, DIV: Peacekeeping._

 __The leather chairs were still too-deep, high armed and stiff backed, so that I felt every inch the girl in the ripped clothes, track marks running up her arm, dead lab-rat still swinging from her fingertips.

It was haunting in a way I'm sure Rufus Shinra couldn't have calculated, could never have even _begun_ to imagine, the reconstruction of this landmark tower. The startling illusion of power and strength, stability. Through hell and high water Shinra remained constant and untouched. 

But there were tiny flaws in their new blueprints--flaws I'm certain only I took note of. 

Because even though the goddamn _floor tiles_ were the same, and the MPs, still coated in their ridiculous red armor, might've been standing outside those same glass elevators for decades, and the Turtles' Paradise poster stuck on the notice board might've hung there for an eternity, and even my old keycard might've worked, if I'd thought to bring it, this was not Shinra of old. 

And I could goddamn well _smell_ it. 

Blue-suited boys with too-large swords were painfully absent of these hallways, and through the crowd of grey and white costume I couldn't taste the static running this building. The man behind the door was a poor imitation as well. 

I'd been expecting that stark face he possessed, the no-nonsense attitude, and though I couldn't quite piece back together the image of the warrior confined into a dark business suit, I knew this was not him--this man sitting in his place, face too young and unscathed, hair too long and well kept, paperwork stacked too high around him. 

"You are not Veld." It shouldn't have been that surprising. It was one of the most striking details, the biggest difference. 

The gold lettering.

_TSENG, Head of Investigation Sector of the General Affairs Department, ABV: TURKS, DIV: Peacekeeping._

__"No, I am not," he admitted, standing to offer me a seat on the other side of that _same_ heavy wooden desk, so that I might stare in awe at the nameplate they had erased and recarved to fit this new man. "Veld defected some years ago." 

"I see," I say, even though I don't.

"I take it you're Ms. Shinohara; I am Tseng, Head of the Investigat--"

I hold up my hand. "It's okay; I can read." 

"To business then," he tells me, and it occurs to me I haven't had a job interview since I was 16 years old. "You come highly recommended of Director Miura of Armed Forces and Security, you're a discharged SOLDIER 2nd Class, Rank A, of two years, and Shinra has granted you six honors." 

Thinking back, those two years don't feel half as impressive as he makes them sound, a bunch of kids with weapons stumbling through life, a lot of death, a lot of blood, but I'm forced to agree, "Yes."

"Shinra record has you on file in Midgar for three years," he looks down from his nice file, printed in my name, to see if I am surprised, "in which time we are reported as losing three agents." 

It's hard to keep a straight face, half grinning, half wondering if _Montgomery, Jason_ counted for one person or three. "Yes?"

"And after?" he asks, because his file must not lead very far past Midgar, it cannot extend over the mountains into the territory of Fort Condor, it can't know the whole trail into Wutai, there are no scope-shot photographs of a girl on the edge of a canyon, there is no diagnosis for the dead man in her arms. 

"I stayed in the west treating the Stigma." 

I know he thinks I'm lying. "You have medical training, then?"

"Sure." 

He considers the response for a minute, but nods and returns his attention to my file. I wonder what the picture in it looks like. I wonder if my smile looks as devious as it does now, I wonder if it's intentions are half as good. 

"Ms. Shinohara, I'd be lying if I said I had a better candidate." He's balanced himself on the edge of his desk, too close to me for comfort, file closed and pushed aside. "But I have to wonder what it is you're doing here." 

It echoes between the sides of my skull. _What have you come back for?_

A chance, a hope, a useless dream that'll never come true. To honor the memory of a dead friend, to live in the wisdom of another, to prevent the fatality of more yet. To remember and forget. To belong to something old and something new. To have a place and make a difference. To be close to what left over shambles my life still offered. 

To be useful. 

To have a name. 

"I miss my number, Tseng," and it sounds so childish and forlorn that I almost laugh myself. 

He takes too long to think about it, weigh his options, but it still sounds abrupt when the words finally spill out of his mouth. "Shinohara, Hikou, ID 58246471." He is hesitating; there is still time to go back. "Welcome to the Turks."

I grin despite myself. Yuuta has always been fabulous at getting me terrible jobs. 

"You can call me Hikou."


	9. Telephones

_You have reached the inbox of_ Hikou Shinohara _please record a message after the tone._

_Or, to page this person, press 9 now._

_**Beep** _

_Hikou? Yuuta. Tseng told me you took the job. I'm busy today, but I thought we could go celebrate tomorrow, go over a few things. Give me a call back. My PHS will be on until 9._

___**Beep  
**  
This is an automated message from _Shinra Stocking Sector. _Your standard_ TURKS Uniform _and_ handgun _have been registered and are ready for pick up as of_ May 1st. _Please contact the main Shinra Stocking facility if you are unable to retrieve your items on this date.  
_  
 ** _Beep  
_**  
 _Hey, Yuuta again. Sorry I didn't catch your last call, out of town on a WRO scout. Seventh Heaven sounds fine, I'll see you at eight?  
_  
 **** _Beep  
_  
 _Newb! Rude and I are taking the other girls out for drinks Friday on the company tab. Stop being a stick in the mud and come out with us, huh?_

__**Beep  
**   
_Ms. Shinohara, this is Edward Mullens at the Edgeside Apartment complex. I'm calling to inform you we've recently had a vacancy in one of our penthouses, and see if you were still seeking new lodgings in the city. You can reach me at 332-967-0956 between 1 and 5 PM._

__**Beep  
**   
_Hey, Hikou. It's Cloud. Tifa mentioned you stopped by the bar last week looking for me, but I was out on a delivery in Junon. Just... uh... letting you know I'm back now. ... Bye._  
 ****  
Beep  
  
_It's Tseng. Something serious has happened. I need all Turks to report to HQ as **soon** as possible. _

__**Beep  
**   
_To save this message, press 1 now. To delete this message, press 7._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 3: Rotary has been posted.


End file.
